Atheist Mom

Ok, first, read this.

Here is my favourite part of the article:

“If a student prays and they think that the tight ‘formfitting’ clothing is accepted by the Lord, they have not asked, or have not asked the right question, or they have chosen an answer for their own gratification. I don’t believe the Lord would give approval to anyone to be disobedient to the CES Dress and Grooming Standards.”

Wow.

So let’s get this straight. You need to go and pray but if you don’t get the same answer I do then you’re either lying or you prayed wrong. (This is the same approach they apply to knowing whether or not the Book of Mormon, or the church for that matter, are true. Pray and if you get the right answer it’s true. If you get the wrong answer, you’re not deserving and you need to try harder.) Also, God is backing up the Rexburg dress code nazis because, hey, he’s not busy.

There are so many things I could say about this article. In some ways it made me laugh because it is just so ridiculous. It also makes me feel sad and angry. To me, this is exactly what comes from asking people to put critical thought up on the shelf and stop thinking for themselves. It’s scary and let’s be honest, it’s a fundamental building block of all religions. My husband went to BYU Idaho (formerly Rexburg College) and when he was there, part of the dress code was that they couldn’t wear shorts on campus. The only exception was the school issued gym strip that they had to wear whenever they worked out. Oddly enough, this gym strip included shorts..

One day hubby (Bri) decided to buck the rules (what a rebel!) and make the short (2 minute) walk from his dorm to the gym in his shorts. When he got there, the student behind the counter refused to give him his gym strip because he was wearing shorts. Bri pushed him and said “Let me get this straight, you’re not going to give me my shorts because I’m wearing shorts?” I think he assumed that when faced with how silly that was, the kid would just hand over the clothes. Nope…he still refused. Eventually, Bri stopped a guy who was also there getting his strip, asked if he could borrow his pants and then put the pants over the shorts right in front of the kid behind the counter. The kid promptly handed over the gym strip because Bri was now wearing pants. (Which he was about to remove and give back to their rightful owner and then change into another pair of shorts. You couldn’t even make this shot up it’s so crazy.)

Another interesting sidenote to this article is that BYU Idaho and the main BYU campus in Provo, Utah have different dress codes. So the Lord is cool with certain items of clothing in Utah, but not in Idaho. It doesn’t take a genius to stop and think about that for a moment and realize something is fishy. It does however take someone who isn’t afraid to think their own thoughts, and there’s the rub.